• Columnists

Donna Fisher, author, "Professional Networking for Dummies"

COLUMN = NETWORKING

Donna Fisher is an entrepreneur at heart. She loves creating and growing fun and profitable businesses. For 20 years, she has had her own business as a speaker/trainer for corporate meetings, conferences and conventions. She earned her Certified Speaking Professional designation CSP in 1998 and has continued to present programs on “People, Power and Possibilities.”

Along with her speaking business, she is the co-owner and President of HiHat, Inc., a manufacturing and retail business for drums and percussion instruments. http://www.percussiononline.com

In 2009, the Percussion Center was ranked as one of the “Top 50 Fastest Growing Woman-Owned Businesses in Houston” based on a growth of 156% from 2002 to 2009 and 20.8% from 2007 to 2008. This led to the creation of her training program, “Drumming Up Business.”

In 2004, she rediscovered her creative side and her love of crocheting while visiting her Mother in North Carolina. The creative juices led to the development of three products, the camishawl, the Sharap and Chakra Shawls. Her product line is Soft & Luxurious custom designed and hand created wearable textiles. http://www.softandluxurious.com

Her five books, “Power Networking,” “People Power,” “Power NetWeaving,” “Switched-On Networking,” and “Professional Networking for Dummies” have been translated into four languages, recommended by Time magazine, and used as reference books in corporations and universities.

Donna’s mission is to be a catalyst for people to communicate and relate with respect and dignity and connect with people to make a difference. She helps people get set up to use Send Out Cards to stay connected with clients, prospects, family and friends.

For more information, visit www.donnafisher.com.

There is little success where there is little laughter.”

– Andrew Carnegie

When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.”

– Jimi Hendrix

Never never never never give up.”

– Winston Churchill

They who give have all things. They who withhold have nothing.”

– Hindu Proverb

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

– Leonardo da Vinci

Whosoever knows how to fight well is not angry. Whosoever knows how to conquer enemies does not fight them.”

– Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.”

– E.B. White

I can’t go back to yesterday—because I was a different person then.”

– Lewis Carroll

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”

– Thomas Edison

No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it”

– Andrew Carnegie

Change is a math formula. Change happens when the cost of the status quo is greater than the risk of change.”

– Alan Webber, author, "Rules of Thumb"

Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly. Hold fast to dreams, for when dreams go, life is a barren field frozen with snow.”

– Langston Hughes

Do you believe it is important to give back some portion of your wealth to support charitable causes?”

– Steven Schussler

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”

– Joseph Campbell

Never cut what you can untie.”

– Joseph Joubert

Confidence is the most important thing you can teach someone… if you can teach them confidence, you don’t have to teach them anything else.”

– Vin Diesel

‎The biggest flaw in our existing theory of capitalism lies in its misrepresentation of human nature.”

– Muhammad Yunus

Destiny is a name often given in retrospect to choices that had dramatic consequences.”

– J.K. Rowling

Things don’t change. You change your way of looking, that’s all.”

– Carlos Castaneda

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently.”

– Steve Jobs, Apple, Inc.

We need to learn to set our course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship.”

– General Omar Bradley

The important thing is not being afraid to take a chance. The greatest failure is to not try.”

– Debbi Fields, Mrs. Fields Cookies

Almost anyone can start a community, but it takes real talent and commitment to get people to show up and keep coming back.”

– Andy Sernovitz

No matter how difficult and painful it may be, nothing sounds as good to the soul as the truth.”

– Martha Beck, from "Leaving the Saints"

Inspiration and genius — one and the same.”

– Victor Hugo

Tolerance and patience should not be read as signs of weakness. They are signs of strength.”

– The Dalai Lama

We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.”

– Winston Churchill

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.”

– Abraham Lincoln

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.”

– Robert Frost

Do not say, ‘why were the former days better than these,’ for it is not from wisdom that you ask this.”

– Ecclesiastes, 7:10

If you were independently wealthy and never had to work a day in your life, would you still choose to spend your time attempting to become a successful entrepreneur?”

– Steven Schussler

Nobody talks about entrepreneurship as survival, but that’s exactly what nurtures creative thinking.”

– Anita Roddick, founder, The Body Shop

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly,
 what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

That which grows fast withers as rapidly; that which grows slowly endures.”

– J.G. Holland, novelist

‎Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.”

– Booker T. Washington

When you are asked if you can do a job, tell ‘em, ‘Certainly I can!’ Then get busy and find out how to do it.”

– Theodore Roosevelt

A warrior cannot complain or regret anything. His life is an endless challenge, and challenges cannot possibly be good or bad. Challenges are simply challenges.”

– Carlos Castaneda

Success is the necessary misfortune of life, but it is only to the very unfortunate that it comes early.”

– Anthony Trollope

But all the while I was alone, the past was close behind, I seen a lot of women, but she never escaped my mind, and I just grew, tangled up in blue.”

– Bob Dylan

Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.”

– Helen Keller

If you do not tell the truth about yourself
, you cannot tell it about other people.”

– Virginia Woolf

A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind.”

– Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.”

– Mark Twain

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow know what you truly want to become.”

– Steve Jobs

We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.”

– Charles R. Swindoll

A person who learns to juggle six balls will be more skilled than the person who never tries to juggle more than three.”

– Marilyn vos Savant

Women once had the goal of being Superwoman; I think most of us now simply strive to have a super day.”

– Author, Activist Lee Woodruff

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”

– John Quincy Adams

There is only one success – to be able to spend your life in your own way.”

– Christopher Morley

Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them!”

– Madam C.J. Walker